Aluminum alloy or wire and cable industry new favorite

Aluminum alloys have great potential both in terms of production cost and in terms of application, and it is very likely that in the next few years, replacing copper cores will become the new darling of wire and cable manufacturers. On the whole, regardless of the high price of copper materials, or with the construction of a new wave of power grid construction, will give aluminum alloy development opportunities, but also let wire and cable manufacturers find a perfect alternative to copper core, Get rid of the dependence on copper.

In recent years, the high price of copper materials has made the wire and cable manufacturing companies miserable. With the increase in production costs, the meager profits have caused some wire and cable manufacturers to give up themselves. It can even be said that some phenomena such as shoddy, shortage of shorts, shortage of short yards and other phenomena in the market are also inextricably linked to the high price of copper. Based on the principle of benefit-oriented, since the customer's request is a copper-core cable, in order to win more profits, it is only possible to use brains in copper materials. Therefore, doping and wrapping copper are common in the industry.

Of course, in addition to high prices, copper has its own advantages, otherwise it is impossible for China's wire and cable manufacturers to rely on it. Copper has excellent electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, so that China's wire and cable manufacturers are indifferent to their enthusiasm, and even the wire and cable industry's annual copper consumption accounts for more than 60% of the country's copper content! But as we all know, China is not In contrast, in China, the lack of copper resources is an unavoidable issue, which has caused copper prices to remain high.

However, in fact, the copper core cable also has its own drawbacks, mainly in the installation is more difficult, the installation cost is high, easy to cause theft, prone to aging, etc., but although the drawbacks are more significant, but because China's wire and cable industry is relatively inert, Do not like or say it is not easy to choose to change the status quo, so the lack of strong companies in the industry research and development of copper core cable alternatives, and will be more energy for low prices to buy copper. But even if it is to snatch cheaper copper, it is still more expensive than developing a substitute for copper. From a long-term perspective, the development of a new material, thus changing the status of excessive dependence on copper, is one step ahead of the market and one step ahead of other competitors.

In recent years, companies have also invested capital and manpower in the research and development of new materials. They have successively developed aluminum cables, copper clad aluminum, copper clad steel and other products. However, at present, after the market practice, it is still imperfect. Furthermore, due to many reasons such as performance and recycling, the application has been greatly limited, and it has not been able to create a new atmosphere of confrontation with copper and copper balance. However, in view of the objective reality in front of us, research and development of new materials that replace copper materials is still a matter of urgency! Because China’s wire and cable industry is currently suffering from overcapacity and fierce competition, if we cannot find and develop high technology content The replacement of increasingly expensive copper materials with new materials with excellent performance is undoubtedly a constraint for the wire and cable industry. For wire and cable manufacturers, it is undoubtedly a drag, which seriously drags down the profit of the production companies.

Although both the national and the industry are communicating with each other, we believe that with the implementation of projects such as West-to-East power transmission and power grid reconstruction and the gradual progress of urbanization, the wire and cable market capacity in China will be 8%-9. The speed of % has maintained a considerable increase, but if you can't break the excessive dependence on copper materials and can't break the bottleneck of new material R&D, then perhaps China's wire and cable industry should be even more mixed.

Of course, the preliminary application of aluminum alloy cable is likely to break the old and difficult problem of wire and cable manufacturing companies only "copper". This point, whether it was at the Asian high-end wire and cable summit in 2012 or later in the industry's multiple promotion conferences, showed that the development of aluminum alloy cables is extremely unstoppable and unstoppable. This point can be found in Europe and the United States and other developed countries. Europe and the United States, including the United States, Canada and other wire and cable giants have been using aluminum alloy cable for nearly 40 years, and aluminum alloy cables are also subject to wire and cable due to their good electrical performance and safety performance. Manufacturers and markets are favored. To this end, the United States and Canada have established standards for cable products and formed standardized production.

With the improvement of transmission and transformation technologies and the development of power transmission lines, aluminum alloy wires are increasingly showing their superiority, and they have an exclusive advantage in long distance, large span, and ultra-high voltage transmission. At present, Western Europe, Northern Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries have been widely adopted. Almost 80% of the transmission lines in the United States and France use aluminum alloy wires, and Japan has reached more than 50%. The use of Southeast Asian countries has increased rapidly year by year. The current application in China is less than 1%. Therefore, whether China's wire and cable manufacturing enterprises can find a hammer that can keep the prices of raw materials high is not uncommon on aluminum alloy cables, causing widespread interest in the industry.